Over 500 feared killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza hospital, school
According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, the attack on the hospital is the deadliest Israeli air strike in five wars fought since 2008
Over 500 people are feared to have been killed in Israeli air strikes on a hospital and a school which were housing and sheltering civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Among the attacks, the one on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip alone killed about 500 people, reports Al Jazeera and BBC citing the Palestinian health ministry.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, This is the deadliest Israeli air strike in five wars fought since 2008..
"Pictures emerging from the Al Ahli Arab Hospital show scenes of chaos - with bloodied and maimed casualties being rushed out on stretchers in the darkness. Bodies and wrecked vehicles can be seen lying in the rubble-strewn street outside," the BBC wrote in its live update coverage of the Hamas-Israel war.
Unconfirmed videos appeared to show a huge explosion shortly beforehand.
Hundreds of displaced people had been sheltering in a hall on the hospital grounds, according to locals.
Civil defence officials say the explosion was the result of an Israeli air strike and that hundreds are trapped in the rubble. The Israeli military says it is looking into the incident.
"The massacre at al-Ahli Arab Hospital is unprecedented in our history. While we've witnessed tragedies in past wars and days, but what took place tonight is tantamount to a genocide," spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.
Meanwhile, Gaza's Hamas government described the attack as a "war crime".
"The hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes" because of other Israeli strikes, a statement said.
The development took place minutes after an earlier air strike on a UN school in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 6 people and injured dozens, according to the UNRWA, the UN agency that aids Palestinians, reports the New York Times.
At least 4,000 people were sheltering in the school, and casualties are expected to rise, it said.
About 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since the war erupted on October 7. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed.
In the meantime, replying to a New York Times query about why Israel continued to strike in southern Gaza after calling for people to evacuate there, Maj Nir Dinar, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said Israel sought to avoid civilian casualties but that Hamas fighters were hiding out among Gazan civilians. He added that southern Gaza was relatively safer than the north, though not entirely safe.